For most of her tenure as CEO Whitman has been dealing with the repercussions of the acquisition just before that, the $11 billion purchase of software maker Autonomy, orchestrated by her predecessor Leo Apotheker (though Whitman was on the board of directors at the time). HP took on a boatload of debt to finance the acquisition.

The situation has escalated into investigations by regulators in the U.S. and U.K., the resignation of two of HP's board members, the replacement of the chairman of the board, and multiple shareholder lawsuits.

But all of that could mean that HP is finally moving behind the Autonomy disaster.

On Thursday, HP posted a two-in-a-row beat on earnings expectations and said its cash situation is improving. Operating net cash increased by $1.6 billion, the eighth consecutive quarterly improvement of over $1 billion, the company said.

So, after a two-year pause, when asked about acquisitions, Whitman said she may need to start shopping again:

"As this market changes very dramatically, you can see that we may need acquisitions in security, big data, mobility and cloud. We will be very judicious. It will be returns based, and I would say it would be small to medium-sized acquisitions, so that's where we are headed ..."

It will be interesting to see what she buys and how much she spends. HP has a long history of spending big bucks on companies and tech it wants including Palm ($1.2 billion), 3PAR ($2.35 billion), ArcSight ($1.5 billion), 3Com ($2.7 billion), EDS ($13.9 billion) and Compaq ($25 billion).